


You'll Never Know, Dear

by theswearingkind



Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Goat Farm, M/M, Post-Canon, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 01:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1113742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theswearingkind/pseuds/theswearingkind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Later, Agron will not remember what caused them to quarrel in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Never Know, Dear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SunsetSwish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunsetSwish/gifts).



> This fic is set in the same universe as [We've Gotten Strange, We've Gotten Older (It'll Be Alright)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1095072), and while you technically could read this one without reading that one, too, it'll make more sense if you've read both. (It also contains references to a character from [There's a Story No One Tells](http://archiveofourown.org/works/966745), but that's less important.)
> 
> Written for the SFC Gift Exchange for Sunset_Swish, for hir request for "Nagron, something with the idea of fighting to save the relationship, but NOT based on jealousy." This is actually the third fic I started for you, and the only one that turned into anything even remotely suitable for a gift exchange (though at least one of the others will be seeing the light of day, hopefully sooner rather than later.) Hope you enjoy it! And, as always, thank you to static_abyss for listening to me whine about this story in all of its various configurations and for cheerleading me on.
> 
> Title, obviously, from "You Are My Sunshine." Because I am 1) the worst and 2) a sap.

Later, Agron will not remember what caused them to quarrel in the first place. Perhaps it was the burned bottom of the bread, or the good soap running out so that they had to make do with stinging lye. Perhaps it was the first goat they ever purchased dying unexpectedly, two weeks past, leaving a barely weaned kid behind. Perhaps it was the lingering unease from Laeta’s visit with her new babe, the way Agron knew his eyes had followed the child wistfully, while Nasir’s had determinedly avoided his gaze. Perhaps it was some combination of all.

Most likely, it was the terrible fucking weather, the fourth day in a row of waking to rain in the morning and falling asleep to rain at night, and being stuck together in their tiny hut for every hour of it. Agron certainly could not call it pleasant, but he was born in these lands east of the Rhine; he never stopped being used to the rain, expecting it, even on the hot sands of Capua. But Nasir, born in Syria, raised in the ever-present sun of southern Italia, grew restive if he did not see Helios make his daily trip across the sky.

He could be a right fucking shit about it, too.

Agron had found it amusing, at first, in the way he found all Nasir’s slight faults amusing; his occasional stubbornness, his distaste for German drink, his tendency to steal the bedclothes. Nasir’s snappishness in the face of a little damp had seemed a mere quirk of temperament, one that served but to throw his many excellent qualities into sharper relief. He had, after all, survived a blizzard that claimed the lives of thousands, and done so with no complaint; Agron could be forgiven for thinking Nasir would bear a bit of rain with equal fortitude.

Five years together in Germania, and Agron has learned to dread the occasional lingering rains as he dreads few other things in this world. Rain does not merely make Nasir petulant; it makes him _mean_ , in a way he scarcely ever is, otherwise. The rain makes Nasir narrow in on weakness, exploit it, makes him glad to see others’ unhappiness and doubts brought to light: Laeta’s worry that they all see her still as nothing but Roman; Leona’s distress that Belesa means to leave the village and move further south with her new woman; Fridumar’s quiet fear that Sibyl will never see him as anything other than friend. Nasir is always sorry, afterward, but they have lost friends because of it.

That is why they sit together in their house, now, rather than escaping to the tavern for a drink or going to visit a friend: because Nasir made Agron promise that he would keep Nasir away from others next time the rains came, lest he give offense or cause pain. Agron had agreed, of course, but secretly he had despaired, because—well, because it meant that _he_ was stuck dealing with Nasir’s stinging temper.

Across the room, Nasir slams about their small cooking-area, anger pouring off of him in waves, and Agron closes his eyes against the headache he can feel building in his temples. How much longer can these fucking rains last?

He thinks the slight ringing he hears is just his imagining, or side effect of the headache, until Nasir snaps, “Whoever that is, you will have to tend them,” and turns his attention back to scrubbing at the leavings of this morning’s meal. The ringing resolves itself, then, into something like—bells? Bells, yes, and that must mean—

“Otto, my friend,” Agron says, relieved, as he throws open the door to their home and steps out under the small covered portico they’d built to provide shelter by the door. “Fuck the gods, it is good to see you.”

Otto climbs down from the carriage of his wagon, water dripping from his full beard as he steps out of the rain, the bells on his team’s harness still jingling. “Well met, Agron,” he laughs—and Agron cannot see what on earth there is worth laughing about, but then, Otto has not been shut up with a hissing cat for what seems like weeks on end.

“I thought you might welcome a caller bearing news of fair weather on the horizon,” Otto grins, and now Agron remembers that Otto has been present during some of Nasir’s worst displays in years past—has been the recipient of some of them, in fact, though his temper is so easy that he has always regarded them with good humor. “I come from Oltingen, where my brother’s wife has just borne him a fine set of twins; and you will be glad to know that the skies have cleared there. By tomorrow, surely, this gods-be-damned rain will be gone.”

Agron grimaces. “We may not last that long.”

Otto laughs heartily at that, clapping him on the shoulder. “The boy is too good for you, Agron, and always has been; if this is his worst quality, you are a lucky man.”

“I am sure I will believe it again,” Agron mutters, “but right now I would sooner trade places with you.”

Otto raises his eyebrows, grinning even wider. “My Melia will be thrilled,” he says. “She only accepted me after you broke her heart with your fondness for cock.”

Agron feels his nose wrinkle, against his will, and Otto laughs again. “But I must be on my way,” he continues. “My beauty waits for me, and yours for you.”

Agron turns slightly, glancing back into the dimly lit hut they call home, and can just make out the scowl on Nasir’s face as he moves sharply about the back of the room, lips shaping words Agron neither can nor wants to hear. He does not look such a beauty, now.

“Fuck the gods,” he curses, rueful. “If the rains do not stop tomorrow, you may gain a houseguest until they do.”

The idea comes to him as he watches Otto drive away. The village the man named is not more than two hours’ ride away—three, perhaps, with the roads as they are now—and it is not too late in the day. Surely the goats would be alright on their own for a few hours. 

It is a grander gesture than he is used to make, of late, and it might well be for naught—it might even make things _worse_ , if they drive so far and the rains persist—but Agron cannot endure another moment in this house.

The decision is made in a moment. He grabs his cloak and makes for the barn, rousing their new mare, Maina, and hitching her to their small covered wagon. He expects her to balk at the rain, but it seems she too has been restless, tossing her mane and plunging out into the looming gray.

Agron steers the cart to their still-open door and draws Maina up beside it, yelling out for Nasir. He has to yell twice more before the man himself deigns to appear, but it is almost worth it when the sheer surprise on Nasir’s face erases, for a moment, the foul expression he has worn for days.

Agron reaches out a hand to Nasir, gesturing him closer. “Come, get in.”

Nasir only gapes at him. “What?”

“Get in, _schatz_ ,” Agron repeats, trying to smile but already feeling the edge of joy fading from this scheme.

Nasir recovers from his shock, narrowing his eyes. “You do not _command_ me, Agron— ”

“Nasir,” Agron cuts in through gritted teeth. “Get in the _fucking_ wagon. Please,” he adds, finally, and he does not know what desperation must be in his face, but Nasir sighs, put-upon, and reaches for his cloak.

“Where do we go?” Nasir asks, once he is settled beside Agron under the low canopy of the wagon. “Did Otto have need of us?”

“I would not spoil surprise,” Agron answers, turning the cart east and spurring Maina into a trot. Her hooves fling up little bits of mud as she moves.

Beside him, Nasir’s momentary curiosity flares into anger. “You brought us into this weather without cause?” he spits.

Agron grinds his teeth for a full ten seconds before answering. “You will know reason soon enough.” 

They press onward, and next to him Nasir grows steadily colder, until the space between them is as wide as it can be while they yet share a cart. But gradually the roads grow easier; the sky begins to lighten; and finally they pass out of a densely wooded grove and find that— _praise the gods_ —the rains have stopped.

And just in time, too, Agron thinks. Before them the sun hangs low, gold and shimmering in the blue-purple sky as it begins to sink beneath the horizon. Ten minutes more and they would have missed this.

“There,” he says at last, unable to think of a better way to put it.

Beside him, Nasir’s silence has changed. When he speaks again, he seems almost abashed. “You drove us all this way that I might see the sun?” he asks.

“I drove us all this way that I might not murder you in your sleep,” Agron retorts, instead of saying _yes, of course, and would have done far more_. Nasir laughs, then, quietly, and Agron knows he hears everything Agron does not say. 

They watch the rest of the setting sun in a silence that is companionable for the first time in days.

When the sun has disappeared entirely, Agron allows himself a few moments before he gathers the reins in his hands and begins to steer Maina in a circle. It is still early, yet, but he would not linger when they have another few hours’ ride ahead to return them to their home.

Nasir looks at him, startled. “What are you doing?” 

“Taking us home, of course,” Agron replies, though the thought of driving once more into those rains makes him want to abandon their village for good, farm and goats and all.

“There is an inn ahead, is there not?” 

“I – yes,” Agron answers.

“And you keep coin in your cloak?” 

He does, though he had not planned to spend it in quite this manner.

“Well, then,” Nasir says, the corners of his mouth beginning to lift, and it is truly unfair how easy Agron is for him, even when he has been a complete ass for days on end. “Buy me a room and a meal, gladiator, and I swear to make it worth your while.” 

“You will steal the covers,” Agron accuses, only half-joking, but Nasir just meets his eyes with a smile. 

“Then we will have to find another way to keep you warm,” Nasir says, before adding, teasingly, “ _mein sonnenschein_ ,” and Agron cannot help but laugh.


End file.
